Major landslides shook the mountainous area of Meppadi in Kerala’s Wayanad district on Tuesday morning after heavy rains. At least 106 people died, 128 were injured, and hundreds more were thought to be trapped.
Kerala’s Extreme Weather
A renowned climate scientist has issued a warning, stating that the creation of deep cloud formations due to the warming of the Arabian Sea may cause unusually heavy rainfall in Kerala in a shorter amount of time and increase the risk of landslides.
This concerning revelation comes after a string of landslides in the steep areas of Wayanad district caused by heavy rain, which have killed at least 45 people and left many more feared trapped beneath the debris.
CUSAT’s Director Comments
Director of the Cochin University of Science and Technology’s (CUSAT) Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research, S. Abhilash, stated that the active monsoon offshore trough that has affected the entire Konkan region for the past two weeks has resulted in significant rainfall in the states of Kasargod, Kannur, Wayanad, Calicut, and Malappuram.
“The soil was already saturated from continuous rainfall, and the formation of a deep mesoscale cloud system off the coast of the Arabian Sea on Monday triggered localized landslides in Wayanad, Calicut, Malappuram, and Kannur,” Abhilash said in a PTI interview.
A Lookback To The 2019 Kerala Floods
Abhilash emphasized that the current weather patterns could indicate a similar risk by drawing comparisons between the cloud formations and those observed during the devastating floods in Kerala in 2019. Researchers have noted a pattern in the formation of extremely deep cloud formations over the southeast Arabian Sea that sporadically break inland, akin to what happened in 2019.
These deep clouds are forming because of the destabilization of the atmosphere caused by the southeast Arabian Sea’s growing warmth. The rain-bearing belt has moved southward and away from its historical zone in the northern Konkan region due to atmospheric instability connected to climate change, according to Abhilash.
Conclusions To The Kerala Monsoon Study
The results of their study show that during the monsoon season, the probability of landslides on the high to mid-land slopes of the Western Ghats in eastern Kerala increases with the intensity of rainfall.
Regarding the current weather, the IMD stated that rainfall values ranging from 19 to 35 centimeters were recorded by a number of automatic weather stations located in the districts of Thrissur, Palakkad, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kannur, Malappuram, and Ernakulam.
“Many IMD automatic weather stations in the affected areas documented rainfall exceeding 24 cm within 24 hours, with some farmer-installed stations recording over 30 cm,” Abhilash stated.
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